A former French surgeon, Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, is slated to go on trial in France on Monday, accused of abusing 299 victims, primarily children, over nearly three decades.
The four-month trial will address alleged rapes and other abuses committed between 1989 and 2014 against 158 men and 141 women, with an average age of 11.
Le Scouarnec acknowledges the allegations but claims his memory is incomplete. Many alleged victims report no memory of the assaults, possibly due to being unconscious at the time.
The case gained attention in 2017 when a 6-year-old neighbor accused Le Scouarnec of inappropriate touching.
A search of his residence uncovered over 300,000 photos and 650 video files containing pedophilic, zoophilic, and scatological content, according to investigation documents.
The investigation further revealed that Le Scouarnec documented himself as a pedophile in his notebooks, detailing his actions. Investigators then located alleged victims whose names were listed in these notebooks.
In 2020, Le Scouarnec was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison for that case, along with the rape and sexual assault of his two nieces in the 1980s and 90s, and a 4-year-old patient.
Amélie Lévêque, an alleged victim named in the notebooks, was 9 years old during her surgery in 1991. She recalls little about the operation but remembers “a surgeon who was quite mean” and that she “cried a lot” afterward.
She described being contacted following the discovery of her name in the notebooks.
“That was the beginning of the answers to a lifetime of questions, and then it was the beginning of the descent into hell,” Lévêque told France 3. “I felt like I had lost control of everything. I wasn’t crazy, but now I had to face the truth of what had happened.”
“I fell into a deep depression. … My family tried to help, but I felt completely alone,” she said.
Le Scouarnec was previously convicted in 2005 for possessing and importing child sexual abuse material, receiving a four-month suspended sentence. Despite this conviction, he was appointed as a hospital practitioner the following year.
Le Scouarnec could face up to an additional 20 years in prison on top of his current 15-year sentence from his 2020 conviction for rape and sexual assault of children.
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